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blueflamebimbo · 1 month ago

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DEVOTED

𓆩♡𓆪 ── BOKUTO KŌTARŌ X READER

A/N: I don't even know what to say - this may be one of my favourite things I've ever written. Folklore combined with monster-fucker vibes but also somehow one of the most intensely romantic vibes I've written so far? Monster under the bed, but simultaneously panty thieving idiot Bokuto is my favourite. Shout out to the extra rows of teeth.

Warnings: NSFW, AU! paranormal stuff happening, childhood friends to lovers vibes, written pretty neutrally, but fem!reader just in case - no description of genitals or body parts, mentions of manhandling, biting, nearly breaking skin through biting, allusion to oral sex, panty thieving, there is no volleyball involved in this fic. descriptions of Bokuto as capitalised He/Him because while his is "just a lil guy", he is very much an Entity(tm) in this.

Word count: 3.797

It starts, as many things do, innocently. On the playground, children talk about what is commonly referred to as 'the bogeyman'; a hairy monster with sharp teeth. He hides underneath your bed at night and eats children who behave badly. Supposedly, He's a decent incentive not to act out around parents. You're not entirely sure how your parents' perception of your behaviour reaches the ears of this bogeyman, but your friends all seem to think it's a big deal. You think you're too sceptical to believe in this bogeyman, whoever He may be, so you sleep just fine.

It's weeks later, after a screaming match with your parents about late-night cartoon watching, that you lie in bed, staring at the ceiling and stewing in your own discontent. The moonlight slips in through the slats of the blinds at your window and cast a strange shadow on the opposite wall of your room. That's when the eeriness of the night reminds you of the tales about the bogeyman. You let out an indignant huff, one that can only be mastered by an eight year-old, at the mere idea of His existence.

"Eating children," you roll your eyes into the darkness of your room, mumbling aloud. "How dumb." Stubbornly, you roll onto your side, flinging the sheets about until you're comfortable.

From the shadows underneath your bed, a dark wisp crawls its way up the wood of your bed frame, curling itself around your ankle where your foot hangs off the mattress. Your eyes widen at the sight, your breath stilling in your chest. The wisp feels almost cold to the touch, but you're confused by the way it doesn't hurt. For a moment, you stay so still you feel almost light-headed at a lack of oxygen. When nothing else happens, however, you let your body relax. A smug smile curls at the edge of your lips.

"Told you," you murmur, "you won't hurt me at all, will you?"

It takes longer than you hope for, and you almost give up; almost make yourself believe that the wisp at the end of your bed is a figment of your imagination, but then you hear it: a soft, boyish chuckle coming from underneath the bed. The wisp tightens momentarily, and then it's gone.

A common misconception about the bogeyman, as it happens, is that He never ages. In folklore, He is rumoured to always be some ancient entity, taking on the form of whatever frightens a child the most.

This turns out to be untrue.

At age fourteen, you go through a brief period of being bullied, heavily. There's a girl in your class that seems to go through a tough time at home - something to do with her parents' divorce, you believe - and she needs a scapegoat to act out against. Unfortunately, it has to be you. You don't exactly blame her; you're emotionally intelligent enough to know that she will probably outgrow the behaviour, but when you come home with another bruise on your leg after she pushed you into the bike rack at school again, you can't help but feel frustrated.

"I'm not sure I understand why people feel the need to take things out on others. I feel like that just adds to the problem instead of resolve it, you know?"

The wisp that's currently curled around your calf as softly strokes over the bruise and soothes it with its cool touch, pauses.

"Humans are cruel creatures, and that's coming from someone like me," He muses, quickly adding an amused "no offense."

His voice no longer carries the high pitch you knew Him to have when you were a child. That's the main reason you know that He, too, ages. Every so often, there's a squeaky crack to the sound of His voice, much like some of the boys in your class have to endure. He hates it, too. Your bogeyman doesn't sound like He's necessarily speaking from underneath your bed. It has a strange quality to it, like it's coming in through an old radio, or comes in muffled, like he's trapped in a jar of sorts. It's your biggest comfort, on nights like these.

The night air drifts in through the window, always open at this time of day. The cold draft causes a mighty shiver to run down your spine now,. You huddle deeper into your sheets, refusing to draw your leg back under the covers. Your eyes droop as you watch the way He continues to caress the bruise on your leg. Your next words are barely audible as you drift off:

"You're the loveliest Thing I've ever met."

In the morning, you stare at the window in your room - suddenly closed. You sink your teeth into your bottom lip and swallow a lump in your throat.

"Do you think you'll ever show yourself to me?" you ask.

He sounds smaller when He eventually replies:

"Not for a while, I think."

A bogeyman is not tied to a bed, or a room, or even a house. A bogeyman is tied to a person. Some may find this challenging to come to terms with. Being haunted for life, apparently, isn't everyone's cup of tea. In your case, however, not being able to bring Him with you keeps you up in the days leading up to you moving into your university's campus dorm rooms. You don't bring it up with Him, unable to figure out a way how to.

The day you settle into the small bedroom, you feel a sense of dread tightening in your chest. Sleeping without your designated night-time demon shouldn't be an issue for someone who's pushing towards their twenties, but you're introspective enough to know that it will be. So, when night comes and the dorm room falls quiet save for the students from other rooms who are washing up in the shared bathroom across the hall, you feel yourself clutching to your sheets with anxiety.

What if there's not enough room underneath the bed? What if He's back at your parents' house? What if He's moved on to someone else?

"Please tell me you're here," you demand into the darkness of your room, scared.

When no answer arrives immediately, you desperately dangle your leg further off the bed, your toes almost touching the wooden planks that make up the floor.

You're so focused on the sight of your own leg that you don't immediately notice the way a thick, dark wisp sweeps across the sheets and curls around your midsection. You hear Him before you see Him, His voice much closer than you've ever heard it, like it's coming from the space on the bed between your back and the wall.

"Where else am I going to go, you idiot?" His voice sounds much deeper, these days, though the way He speaks is always teasing, always just a tad annoying.

The shock knocks the air out of your lungs before the thick wisp around your midsection can force your body back across the mattress, up against what feels like a wall of wisp; sturdy.

He's never come out from underneath the bed during your waking hours before. There's no protocol for you to know how to handle him being behind you. There's a big part of you that wants to turn around and look. The other part, much bigger and perhaps a little nervous, knows that it's too soon.

There's a small wisp at the end of the bed that travels across the sheets and flings the cotton cover across your exposed leg, which would feel like blasphemy if not for the feeling of your bogeyman tucked against your back, wrapped around your stomach and nuzzled into the back of your neck. No need for dangling.

That night, you dream of bright, yellow eyes.

When you wake up the next morning, the pressure against your back is gone.

"Do you have yellow eyes?" you try.

There's an annoying cackle that bounces off the floor underneath your bed.

"Why? Do you like it?"

You can't help but smile.

Yes.

The annoying thing about the bogeyman being a tale for children - and nobody knowing that the bogeyman is really just an age-appropriate albeit slightly demonic roommate - is that nobody tells you about what He's like when He feels the need to be a pervert. And he does, by the way.

At first you really blame your own lack of organisation. Exams were extremely stressful and with having to get your notes and research tabulated and ready to go, housework was really put on the backburner. After six months, however, the mathematics no longer add up.

Your underwear is definitely disappearing.

Instead of doing the adult thing and confronting Him about it, you decide to test him. On a hot afternoon spent studying at the library, followed by a quick shower at the dorms, you arrive back into your room and drop your shower caddy - containing laundry - beside your bed. Leaving it there, you plop onto your bed with a book, feigning both ignorance and concentration while really keeping a close eye on the caddy.

It doesn't happen immediately. Then, from the corner of your eye, you spot a thin wisp of shadow crawl across the floor towards the caddy. You watch the way it dips into the bag and curls around the panties that are stuffed inside. The wisp trembles for a second, pausing, before slowly and quietly pulling the soft cotton from the caddy.

"You think you're so fucking slick, don't you?!" you screech as you propel yourself onto the floor and dive down, reaching out underneath your bed to try and snatch back the garment.

You don't tend to go anywhere near the underside of your bed. The first time your mother tried to vacuum underneath your childhood bed after having met the bogeyman, you cried your eyes out, fearing that she would have captured Him. Your mother of course hadn't understood, and it had taken hours until you'd finally calmed down again, aided by the reassurance that He was still there, His wisps curled around your ankle so tightly it almost cut off blood flow. In later years, you always announced whenever you'd want to clean the floor underneath the bed, using a broom rather than a vacuum, just in case. To be fair, though, you hadn't bothered to clean underneath this specific bed ever since you moved into the dorm. The space there was His, you decided.

So, now you're on your knees, playing tug of war with a panty-stealing demon. He's strong, however, much stronger than you give him credit for. Another wisp shoots out from the black mass in the shadows that live underneath your bed, quick to flick against the back of your hand, causing you to pull your hand back in shock.

"Did you just fucking slap me?"

There's an annoying cackle coming from the dark mass as it cradles the piece of underwear, making it almost disappear from sight with how opaque the mass is. The air around you seems to vibrate as He paws at the cotton - so much so that it almost reminds you of a purring cat. He seems— content? As you sit there, watching Him in his own habitat, you realise you've never seen Him so expansive before. Before, you'd only eye his wisps as they touched your skin, after all. It's almost frightening, it should be frightening, you consider. Yet, between the mass of wisps that clutch at the cotton garment, you can see multiple other pieces of underwear lying around, and that causes you to snap out of your thoughts.

"You're hoarding them!" It comes out as an accusation, and it is. The air vibrates again, and the only way to interpret it is pride.

It ticks you off enough for you to scramble up and leave the room, slamming the door behind you.

When you step back into the bedroom, a few hours later, there's a pile of dirty underwear you haven't seen in weeks stacked by the foot of your bed. Letting out a soft huff, you start sorting them into your laundry baskets. You count fourteen pairs.

Later that night, He's tucked behind you, wisps holding you tightly and part of Him tucked against the back of your neck. Usually, you'd be blissfully comfortable and dozing off by now, but the situation still irks you.

"Why do you do it?" you ask, noticing how your voice barely carries into the room. "Should I be concerned?"

The air around you stirs, and it makes you shiver. A wisp reaches over and tucks a strand of your hair behind your ear. It feels like cold air hits your earlobe.

"Do I scare you?"

It doesn't feel like it's the first time He's asked you this. He should know by now that the answer will always be the same. You shake your head, but don't supply more of an answer than that.

He's quiet for a while, the wisp that tucked your hair is softly combing through the rest of it, now. The sensation is new, strange, and annoyingly soothing.

"You're gone a lot," His voice sounds smaller, now.

"I have a life, you know," you sigh.

The air shifts again.

"My life consists of you," He admits.

You don't know what to tell him, so He continues.

"I'm consumed by you. I want to consume you. I should. It's what I'm here for."

It makes sense, you figure. The folklore can't be wrong about all of it.

"Why don't you?" you murmur. He's never given you a straight answer.

The wisps around you tighten. The wisp that was occupied with your hair now ghosts over your cheek, your lips. He smells like smoke, like petrichor, like he's every bit as ancient and mysterious as He should come across. He smells like home.

"You know why."

Neither of you speaks for a long time. The entire building has gone quiet by the time you press your fingertips to your lips. They still feel chilly from where He touched them earlier.

"I wish I could see you," you admit, realising you hadn't really meant to say it out loud. You decide you may as well explain yourself. "I feel like things might be easier for me if I knew more about you. If I could talk to you directly."

A soft hum resonates against the back of your neck.

"You are talking to me directly, though." It sounds like He's trying to be light-hearted; His voice sounds more chipper than usual. It's hard for you to play along with Him, this time.

"Can I turn around?" you try.

Another hum; He's given up on trying to turn the mood around. The wisps slowly loosen their grip on you.

You turn around in His hold. The black mass in front of you is almost consuming, being this close to it. You catch yourself breathing in deeply, taking Him in. If you closed your eyes, your vision would be the same, you realise. Pitch black.

The wisps tighten their hold on you again; one caresses your arm, slides up the side of your throat. You're breathless by the time the wisp comes to rest on your cheek.

"You're so fucking beautiful."

His voice sounds like it's everywhere, now, overtaking your senses. You almost tear up with the need to return the compliment, though that seems silly, given the situation. You settle for clearing your throat, engaging with him however you can.

"Did you used to have a body?" you ask.

He sounds wistful, trying to cover it up with nonchalance and slang he's heard you use.

"Nah, not in this life, baby."

You lift your fingers, trying to see what happens when you place your hand on the mass in front of you, where His heart would be. It does feel solid, and yet it doesn't. No pulse, either.

"Do you remember your past life?"

There's a pause.

"You really want to know?" His voice sounds almost pained.

Your reply comes too fast, too desperate.

"Yes."

Another pause.

"Close your eyes."

Once you do, you can feel the cold consuming you. You gasp at the intensity of it, but once you open your mouth, you can feel it fill your mouth as well. The cold seeps into your ears, up your nose and burns icy cold behind your eyes.

There's a flash across your retinas, much like when you squeeze your eyes shut and it emulates the way lightning strikes. Then there's yellow eyes, the same you saw in your dream all those months ago. Only now there's also pearly white, sharp teeth, several rows of them, and long, gray hair; unruly. His everything should terrify you. He is terrifying, does look ancient. He doesn't look at you menacingly, however, which makes looking at him so very confusing. His eyes look so lost. Then, as fast as the onslaught on your senses started, it's gone.

You lie there, gasping in his hold once your sight returns, staring up at the ceiling. You can't recall when you ended up lying on your back in the first place. He's still next to you, between your body and the wall, on His side of the bed.

He gives you space. He gives you time.

When you've regained your senses and your heart rate goes back to normal, you find yourself turning back towards Him, unable to stay away now. His wisps immediately curl around you, pulling him back against His mass. You rest your forehead against Him, smiling at the solid coolness of Him.

He's the first to speak.

"You've never asked me for my name."

You smile, closing your eyes.

"Never knew it was mine to ask for," you shoot back softly.

The air around you stirs, and you can feel the wisps as they trail across your thighs, up your throat and into your hair.

"You can have anything you want," He states, more emotional than you expected Him to sound. "Everything."

Your teeth sink into your bottom lip. "What's your name, my love?" It comes out softer than you intended.

"Kōtarō."

His name plays on your lips, twists around your tongue as you silently try it out.

"Can I call you Kō?" you try.

His annoying laugh is more than enough as an answer, but He still follows it up.

"I'm yours."

"Then I'll call you mine, too, Kō."

"Why aren't you sleeping?" He asks, a couple of hours later. The sun is nearly up again.

You lie there, entangled in His wisps, refusing to end the day there.

"I'm still trying to figure out a way to make you stop stealing my underwear, you pervert," you joke.

One of His wisps, the one that's curled around one of your thighs, slowly inches its way up the soft expanse of skin. Your back arches slightly at the implications of where it's headed.

There's a cold sensation against the shell of your ear, and suddenly you can hear his voice like a soft rumble, so close.

"There are other ways of keeping me satisfied," he murmurs.

At this point, you can't imagine saying 'no' to Him.

"How?"

He thrives in the dark. The shadows are His home. It's where He's the most powerful, where He comes alive. He's instructed you to lie back, cover your body with the duvet you'd kicked off the bed hours ago. Your panties lie on the floor; forgotten, redundant, he has no use for them now. The bogeyman is underneath the blankets, making good on His suggestion, except keeping Him satisfied involves keeping you satisfied. The sun is streaming into the room, but your eyes have long since rolled back into your skull - it does not matter. The bogeyman thrives in His shadows. He's between your thighs. He finally consumes.

You wake up several hours later. No university classes today, not an exam in sight. It's well into the afternoon by now. The bogeyman has retreated into the safety of his shadows, away from the rays of sunshine streaming in. You stretch across the mattress lazily, twisting in the sheets until they slip off your legs. Letting one of your thighs fall, you trace your fingers across the bite marks He has left. Several rows of teeth have marked you, nearly drawing blood with their enthusiasm; an artwork of hunger and devotion.

Beautiful.

"Honey, I'm just saying, you're not getting any younger," the voice on the other side of the conversation insists.

The conversation isn't a new one. They start in the first year of university; old ladies at the market asking why there is no partner by your side, your parents complaining about a need for grandchildren, classmates at weddings asking when it will be 'your turn'. In the decade since you graduated, it seems people first got more adament about you following the expected traditions of life, before eventually giving up.

Now in your thirties, enjoying a quiet life in an small house just outside of the city, somewhere where the stars are visible at night and there are too many dark corners for other people to really appreciate the house you chose, you thrive.

The house is positioned in such a way that only the morning rays of sunshine truly penetrate the rooms, bathing the patio in beautiful shades of orange and pink. The rest of the day, however, the house serves as a home for cozy shadows and tranquility.

As you let your friend on the other end of the phone babble on, you swing your legs where you're seated on the kitchen counter, nursing a fresh cup of coffee. From the hallway, a mass of shadow trickles into the room, making its way over to you in crawling wisps. The wisps crawl their way up your calves, caressing the skin. The cool air makes shivers run down your spine - the feeling will never not be novel to you.

"Hey, sweetheart, how about we meet up next week, get some coffee together?" you suggest, "I should really get on with my day."

The other person seems to agree, muttering something about 'dropping the kids off'. They seem to pause, however.

"I'm serious, though. Are you really happy?"

You watch the way dark wisps curl around your thighs, spreading them lightly to fit the large mass of shadow between them. Like this, the mass towers over you. With the last of the morning sun turning behind the house, there's a single ray of light that penetrates the bogeyman, and there's a glimmer of bright yellow that seems to peer straight at you, consuming your devotion.

Yes, you think.

"I am."

If you enjoyed this fic, please let me know by leaving a comment or reblogging. <33

I do not consent to translations or reposting on other websites or blogs.

#.bimbosrb #haikyuu #bokuto

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